Eject

Weston doesn't always come through for me. I headed there Tuesday after work. The temp was still in the 40's. All that new, soggy snow packed down nicely. Too nicely, with a day or two's worth of ruts in it. These rutted, glazed over conditions absolutely confound me. I must look like Bambi on ice trying to skate ski on such crud.

I was in a pretty pissy mood from being stressed out at work and my mind really wasn't into Tuesday Night World's mode to begin with. I bailed out of racing. No need to crash, get hurt or take others down with me. I guess the race went ok for most people. Conditions actually improved a bit after the race, as 80 skiers going around three times kind of "groomed" the course, taking some of the rough edges off.

I brought both pairs of skis again. I fussed over my race skis, which are more for soft conditions, waxing with HF, pure fluoro and rilling. My rock skis got partial treatment, using a leftover nub of wax I'm not even sure what it was. Maybe Fast Wax HF Bronze for warm temps. I also rilled.

Ironically, my rock skis turned out to be much faster than my race skis. Go figure. I warmed up on rock skis, took out race skis, decided not race and then switched back to rock skis. Not that I needed more speed. Conditions were ridiculously fast. Even casually double-poling could average over 10mph. I skied 24km at a non-aerobic pace. I did not get an endorphin fix. I really needed an attitude adjustment. I'd have to wait until intervals on the bike on Wednesday.

At least the storm last weekend brought copious amounts of snow to most of New England. Six of us skied together at Waterville Valley on Sunday. Conditions were very slow and a little soft in places. I was disappointed in the consistency of grooming. "Grooming around the clock" implies well packed trails, not a pass through with snowmobile groomer. Upper snows was not groomed at all.

100% hand shoveled between wife and I. Can't get a better functional workout.

The snow was that fine, cold, dry kind that makes a racket as you ski over it. It had nice tonal qualities actually. The surface was firm, and there was a thick layer of less dense snow below that made a resonant cavity. I thought to myself that drawing a ski across the surface was like drawing a bow across a cello. Both rely on stiction to stir up an oscillation, both couple this oscillation into resonant cavities.

Picnic tables are a lot shorter than a week ago.

Anyway, I skied about 37km in 2.7hrs. Perceived effort to average speed ratio was off the chart. Brett and I killed ourselves heading up Livermore/Cascade, but you'd never know it by looking at the climbing time in Strava. A solid workout for sure. Brett heads to the American Birkie next week and gets to start in wave 2!

Looks like I lost my KOM on Tripoli to Dave Cahill. Need to do something about that. I'm confident I can go sub-17 minutes on Tripoli given a fast conditions day.